


A Survivor

by Elflover15



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, M/M, based off of rp prompt, because im seriously awesome like that, inspiring myself, oh right me, who even does that?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elflover15/pseuds/Elflover15
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terrible things happen in the past, things that are buried by hundreds of hours. Millions of minutes. More seconds than one can actually comprehend. However, the past is the past- and no one can do anything about it. Life has to move on and that is something that Eridan Ampora is going to do, no matter what gets in his way. He can't help the pain, but he can move on- and that's what everyone should be able to do, right?<br/>He doesn't realize how much it actually hurts until some douche with sunglasses comes in and screws up his routine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. New Place, New Experience

**Author's Note:**

> Just a note before shiz nigs goes down- i inspired myself [ from writing up a role play prompt that wont ever get used again because /guess what/ trollplay is dying. and msparp has a fucking character limit ] and i wanted a full story so
> 
> bam first chap in one day. totally worth marathoning some horror movies, am i right? im right.  
> dont worry, this will continue to god knows when. all the way through the summer until i just kind of lay on the floor some day and just have a salt overdose or something from potato chips. man that would be a terrible way to die.
> 
> third person limited pov- from Eridan's side. gonna stay that way :)

“How have you been adjusting, Eridan? Is the new house that the state provided lined up to your tastes?”

“Mostly.”

“Just call when you have a question, all right dear? It’s not that much of a ride out here and I'm sure that it would do wonders to your health to get out of that place every once in a while.”

He hung up the phone without a second thought, placing it calmly on the telephone receiver to let the cordless phone charge a bit. He had just moved in a couple of days ago and already the clinic that he had moved to use was calling him, damn people couldn’t keep their grubby hands off of his father’s money long enough for him to make a nice cozy spot for himself. Of course, he didn’t mind it that much- he knew that if no one called that he would certainly go insane with the quiet breeze which brushed through the living room every now and again. The spring time air never seemed so much fresher, and the small motion of staying here forever was a thought that he could humor just for a little bit on the brighter days for the small birds that twittered and twat.

The refrigerator was empty, the floor full of dusty footprints from the movers who didn’t know how damaging their boots would be against the damn thing, and the ceiling that didn’t seem to be holding up well enough with just a couple of boards that ran across it. It was only a couple of boxes that had been emptied out in these days, only things that he seemed to need to put up. The couple of pictures of friends that he had kind of made through his years, friends that would never return phone calls or send Christmas letters. He didn’t mind it, fake friends were better than no friends in his mind- convenient friends were so much easier to handle than keeping up with people who attempted to discard one after a certain amount of years. The feeling of being rejected was much too familiar, since the days of early childhood as he attempted to be daddy’s boy, to the years of high school in which he tried to live for himself and love who he wanted to. Every single time of stepping into the light of something good and happy always slammed the door on his toes, sometimes breaking the small amount of hope that he clung to. This house suggested that he wasn’t done yet- and he wasn’t, he was going to make something of himself, he was going to live even with his past burned into his skin against his choice.

It’d already been six years, now at the age of twenty-three, since the whole thing went down. The guy was dead now, and there was no more closure to be had on any part. Eridan had killed him himself, and he had told no one but the police about how he actually did it. Self-defense, they said, self-preservation. It was an obvious way to keep stuff straight, keep people out of massive amounts of paperwork, to keep the clutter of the courts. The police told him to get counseling, a lot of goddamn counseling that wouldn’t be worth anything. He was allergic to the creams that the doctors prescribed to him; he wasn’t good with any kind of surgery so that was out of the question as well. The different kinds of injections that some of the people had suggested didn’t stay very long. All kinds of cover-ups had been over his skin at one point or another to just hide what could not be fixed. Nothing worked.

A doorbell chime rang through the house. He didn’t know that there was even one installed, let alone would some lone person actually ring it. The male had chosen this particular small town to reduce the number of people that he would have contact with. Less people, less chance of being exposed again, less chance of being asked by one of those freaks with their obsessions of the greatest crimes in the current time to touch one of the several lines that traced his body. Eridan wrapped a scarf carefully around his neck, pulling the white long sleeve shirt down to his wrists before adorning a couple of black gloves. He had been identified in mostly every town- although he was hoping that this time would be a lucky break.

“ ‘ello?” he opened the door up slightly, letting the chain at the top tighten and rattle just a bit to see some kind of douche wearing sun glasses as if they hadn’t gone out of style years beforehand. He seemed like one of those guys that never lost popularity in high school, always got the chicks that he wanted and never had a single doubt cross his mind about anything he did; a bastard who could strut anywhere without having to think twice about how he looked or what kind of tone he would use in any kind of situation. And in that moment Eridan couldn’t help but hate him, hate his freedom and ease. Hate whatever kind of shit that he stood for.

“Hey dude, I was just comin’ over here to tell ya that we’re havin’ a barbeque and a bonfire tonight. Since you’re in the neighborhood now, you’re automatically welcome.”

He sounded like a douche, blond hair guy with freckles on the part of his face that were actually showing along the edges of his glasses. There was nothing else that could really be said about him. Probably would have been in the Confederate Army if he had been alive back then. Probably didn’t know the difference was between Star Trek and Star Gate.

Eridan gave the guy a quick nod, some kind of excuse and closed the door quickly before the conversation would continue at all. No, he wasn’t going to get close to these kinds of people- they were just southerners who couldn’t bring themselves into the world of reality. But he had other things to do rather than attempt to piss a popular kid off more than he already assumingly did. His bare feet padded around the house on the shaggy carpets that he had instantly loved when he moved in, he had saw the place online a couple of months ago and honestly all of the little details that he saw now were some of the best things that couldn’t be done justice in some shitty little description which mostly went off of the whole ‘it has three bedrooms’ or ‘it has four bathrooms’ or even ‘it’s curb side appeal is to die for’. He really didn’t care for any single fact that spewed out of those people’s mouths, the fact that there was wooden flooring in the dining room, tile in the bathrooms and kitchen, and carpet everywhere else just made it feel comforting. There was no way that one could go around without a little carpet in the home place; it would take away the small factor that made it feel like a safe place to be. Most people would agree that soft and warm things were the number one thing to go to when feeling down- as that’s what each and every infant requires to sleep soundly in the night.

Five hours passed as he read some kind of lame romance novel in the single piece of furniture that some mover had placed in his living room. It was just like all the other romance novels that had ever passed through his hands, some girl falling over backwards for some guy who doesn’t know what personal space is. They end up having sex and having some baby the end. There was never anything after the fact, nothing in the romance books showed what happened after the love had died- and with that basic fact Eridan knew that he was pretty much screwed. But that didn’t hurt as much as it used to now, like the scars they seemed to retract just a little bit and become an offish white color that shined when a bright light was shone against it. He was ready to be alone for the rest of his life, maybe make a home business out of the small talent that he had of sewing that he had picked up from one of his convenient-friends back north, he had a small knack for it- although he couldn’t bring himself to make anything ‘normal’. The small things that he produced were capes, crowns, apparel that would only fit the needs of some overly nerdy person. He could run it through the internet- then he wouldn’t have to face anyone face to face. Even though his face was untouched.

The book dropped into the soft carpet with a thud, leaving the male wondering if he should go about covering the last full-length mirror in the house. It was in one of the bathrooms that he would never get around to using- right in front of the shower that he would probably never touch because of the damn thing. Maybe he should just leave it alone; maybe if some guest came in someday he wouldn’t seem as much of a freak. He laughed quietly at himself and grabbed one of the sheets from a box that was labeled ‘needed’. It was a dark blue color, one of those sheets that he would never get around to using because it didn’t match that certain bedspread and god knew that everything had to fit correctly in a certain way otherwise it didn’t work.

He hadn’t eaten all day. Having an appetite came with treatment, they said, you should go and give them a chance now. Don’t tell them to just sign the papers, give them a chance. They deserve a chance. They didn’t, none of them did; every single person that he had ever talked with asked the same questions.

‘What did he do to you?’

‘Why do you think you’re here now?’

‘How are you feeling today?’

‘We could just talk, if you want.’

He hated all of them, but was willing to give another chance just for the sake of getting rid of so many pills that he had to swallow every single night. Pills that made his head process things slower, forget things easier, see whisps of light that he could only describe -to anyone who he believed wouldn’t diagnose him as schizophrenic- as angels. Of course, they were hideous in the dark when he could see all of the shadows that moved around them- all of the shadows that manifested in each of them. At first he had just called them spirits, told the first doctor that he believed that they were the others. The doctors just gave him the weird look and always gave that fake smile that adorned someone’s lips when they couldn’t do anything about the current situation. They gave him more pills- pills to take away extreme anxiety, to take away the idling pain, and to bring up his mood from the stifling depression. They left sour tastes in his mouth every time he swallowed them down, even with flavored water, milk, pop, nothing worked to take away the affect. It made him want to hurl, but he prevented himself from doing that because he knew the affects that stomach acid would have on the esophagus and teeth. He knew that if he started down that road it would only end up with him dying at the end. And he wasn’t going to die.

People usually had to have motive to live, but Eridan didn’t. He didn’t need the wants or the fears anymore. He didn’t need the smiles or the hugs and kisses because they weren’t something that could touch him anymore. He knew of the pain that most people didn’t know of, the physical and psychological pain that he endured. What a winner, a winner of the deck, a lucky ace or two. He lived for the feeling of being alive, for that moment just after one wakes up and feels how cold it is outside of the warm blankets, for the pain that his stomach got after not having eaten for a couple of days, for the bright sunlight that hurt his eyes when he tipped them upwards to the light.

He decided to just leave the last bathroom mirror uncovered, one less thing to do. He went to bed early that night, an appointment in the morning forced him to pop a couple more than was the actual dosage- but he really didn’t care. Maybe a couple more of the damn things would get his mind off of the abyss that had looked into him. Eridan paused for a couple moments before turning on a small machine that hummed quietly enough so that there was some other sound than the occasional car that buzzed by the street, or the shouts that screamed across the neighboring yards that were obviously the bursts of drunkards. Good thing he didn’t go do that damn barbeque.


	2. A Fighter

“Just signing away your life won’t get you anywhere, you know that right?”

It was a cold harsh room, with a bright office light that bled downwards onto the couch where the fully clothed boy sat. Summer had come, tanning those people who stood out of their houses for more than four minutes in their scandalous shorts and maybe-nothing shirts. They were all idiots, bodies who shone like no one’s business in some kind of way that just pissed Eridan off for no particular reason. He wouldn’t be one of those- he always wore faded jeans and long sleeve shirt.

“ ’f course I kno’ that.”

He never got much out of these sessions, and of course this being the first time with this guy it was more of an informational who-are-you-what-do-you-want-out-of-this-why-should-we-care kind of meeting. Everything completely confidential, like the other two clinics in the other two states that he had been in. Wisconsin, Utah, and now Virginia had taken his case because he requested it; moving every time someone mentioned one thing about the scars that riddled their way through his life. The session was uneventful, and he was starting to get the feeling of regret for moving when he left the building that day. The hot weather that beat down upon him forced people to look at him with his strange choices of clothing. Gloves? Seriously? In this weather? No sane person would do such a thing. He told everyone that asked him about it that he had melanoma- a skin cancer that ran through his family- like his grandfather had back when Eridan was little.

The bus was hot and mucky, filled with people who didn’t know how bad they really stank, every single one of them doused in sweat that didn’t seem to be going away with the tiny little fans that blew through the little area. It reminded him of so many different places that he had been, the purple seats against the red sunset were kind of a strange combination, but he really couldn’t argue with how the world decided to smash colors together. Sometimes he just had to except things as the way they were. His eyes flickered over the couple of people near him, some bums which this was probably the very last ride off of their paycheck that they got illegally. Low lives which the economy needed for their pyramid. That’s just how the government worked in such a country- the few and rich on top and the many and poor on the bottom. It was getting to a point that Eridan felt that the world would just be better off all communist-like.

“Hey, fancy seeing you here. God you must be boiling.”

An almost too familiar voice breaks the male’s concentration, snapping his eyes over to the douche-y face that was cracking a small smile that made him just squirm a little bit in anger. What did he want? Some kind of bj or something? Of course- that’s what these kind of guys obviously wanted, what else could they want? Disgusting person that couldn’t leave him alone.

“Hey, cutie don’t look like that, I’m not stalking you or anything. I mean really if I was, you wouldn't be able to see me 'cause I'd be a sneaky asshole, a mission impossible kind of thing-”

What a liar, every word that came off of his lips- every word that seemed to sting just a little bit. What did he know? Eridan wasn’t pretty- cute- god no, he would never be like that again. He would do everything in his power to prevent little pet names like … like that to come up. Images of those days came back to him, the knives that dug into his flesh without a second thought or the simple vocal instructions that was required in the game. His hands wrapped around the cold metal beam tightly as if it was his only real landline into the current dimension.

“Dude- you okay?”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he retracted from it, brushing it off of his body as if it was on fire instead of some kind of whatever the fuck the douche must have been attempting to convey. He could feel the panic flow to the edges of his skin and his feet skittered backwards. Eridan must have told the guy to fuck off because his lips moved and breath came out but he couldn’t connect the dots to what he had said. He had to get out of this bus- walk home instead maybe listen to the iPod that sat in the front pocket of the worn down jeans. A hand past over his back and the panic that had piled up tightened itself in his fist and before he knew it his hand hurt pretty bad and there was a bright red liquid that flowed down the sides of it. It wasn’t even his- but he couldn’t see who it was as he was pushed to the bottom of the bus and his hands tied behind his back with a couple of small clinks.

It had been a police officer, an FBI agent of all things had been on the bus- had seen what had happened. Eridan got himself dragged down to the police station for some charge like aggravated assault. But they quickly let him go as Dave promised that he would take him home and look after him- well that and probably because they recognized his name and felt that human twinge of pity. He hated it, hated how their eyes landed upon him with that realization. He hated every single cop that he had ever run into- none of them were competent enough to find back then, none of them were able to just get him out of there. It was their fault that he couldn’t wear short sleeve shirts or shorts or go swimming. He missed swimming- he used to be on his high school’s swim team back before all of this. But he’s lost muscles, lost the strength that he had gained and lost the confidence that he had supported for years on end.

They didn’t go straight to Eridan’s house; in fact they went to the other’s house instead. The guy with glasses told him that his name was Dave, Dave Strider and that it was totally ‘cool’ that he hadn’t come to the barbeque although he would have had a fantastic time. He gave Eridan a couple of candy bars and some lame excuse that he needed to gain some weight because damn- apparently it was real easy to drag him around through the different doors. He watched him quietly, watched every move that the other made as if it was some kind of time bomb just waiting to explode. He was pretty pissed, to say the least, to see bandages wrapping around Dave’s face as if something important had gone down. No, he couldn’t have hit this guy- that wasn’t in the way that he went about things. Usually it was just avoid and leave kind of thing instead of actual confrontation.

“Hard fist ya got there.”

“You hawen’t seen the worst.”

So maybe he did hit the guy, but maybe there was some fight that he was only a small bit a part of. It didn’t matter either way, a couple more here or there wouldn’t change the balance of the universe- although the small accent that he had coming from his lips was something that he had despised since the first day he could talk. He couldn’t get around switching his letterings around, couldn’t make it to a point that it was actually ‘normal’. He often told himself that it was better this way; that every single person had to have something about them that stuck out from the crowd. If they didn’t, well, they would just be absorbed into the stream that would no doubt kill them.

Eridan felt a couple of heavy blankets being thrown onto him, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care- already making plans to get out of the place that he had found himself in.

“Name’s Dave by the way, if you would have gotten out of that huge ass house yesterday you probably would have learned it.” The seat shifted as the other sat on the couch near the him, he with a cautious look that Eridan believed that was one of those looks that had been with the whole ‘he’ll break’ kind of expression. God he hated it, hated that expression that he got so often whenever any part of his story would come up- god and this guy probably hadn’t even done his research. A hand brushed through his hair, enough that his hands snapped backwards and smacked the intruder into the back of the couch with a small growl. He wasn’t going to let himself be drawn under the bus- like hell he’d give up what he had built up within the days and the minutes and the months. “Okay, no touchy.”

He spent some couple hours there in that house with the neighbor kid- well not really kid, the guy was probably in his mid-twenties by the way that he walked [as it is well known that each generation has their ‘walk’]. The place seemed laid back, the kind of atmosphere that would suffocate anyone who was really into the whole have-to-do-something-at-this-exact-second king of life style. Two brothers seemed to live there, one of them under the name of Dave and the other probably some stupid name that mirrored it as they were pretty much twins in every aspect; maybe a few years apart at most. Dave seemed to be one of those guys that went and DJ-ed at clubs; got paid extra for a simple crack of his expression to one of the people who just had cash to spare.

Dirk, he learned a bit later, was more of an artist with the easels that were placed in different places around the place. There were oil paintings in the bathroom even, all of those deep-and-dark kind of stuff that depicted some kind of emotional twist that would be the solution to all things in the universe. It was completely unscientific, and that was the only bad thing that he got out of the place. Of course, Eridan would probably have to have the guy come around his place if he was going to be staying long enough to do that blasted white wall that just didn’t look like it had any kind of spirit just sitting there like some kind of bump with the surrounding walls of wooden paneling. There were several pictures of this single guy in this one room that Eridan had wandered into while trying to just find the fucking bathroom as they didn’t really tell him where the fuck the damn thing was. All paintings of some long haired man who, as far as Eridan could tell, was pretty fucking beautiful in the eyes of the painter- so in the eyes of Dirk; probably a boyfriend or something of a close relation. 

Small series of conversation were bounced between these people, a small dinner of rice and chicken that he could barely touch without just wanting to hack up the damn pieces. It was good, no doubt of that it was just that he wasn’t really hungry when the time came around that all social events required eating. It was late in the evening when he was allowed to go home; they probably had one of their family rules that didn’t allow ‘guests’ to leave without a certain amount of time or what not. It was dark, the cold wind that blew through the place was icy- enough to send chills down his back even without the calls that came from the house.

“Come by any time.”

“If you need anything- just call.”

“Don’t hesitate-”

People always said that so easily, but were always so awkward when the moment came to actually use those invites- to actually go into people’s houses in the middle of the night because he knows that he wouldn’t be able to survive if he was by himself. He had done that before- a complete mistake on his part, honestly it wasn’t even an inkling of smart that passed through his head when he attempted to explain everything. To explain the memories that popped up at the most inopportune times or the reason that he dressed so completely whenever he was conscious. Or maybe about the panic that rushed through him every single time a finger was laid upon him. He shook his head slightly at the inconvenience, slumping his way down the road before locking himself away in his house. Goddamn house that would be his safe place, his place that he could always retreat back to until that frontier had been destroyed as well. A small flick and he turned on the different horror movie and let it run into the night. He wasn’t going to sleep after this, even with the medicine. Maybe he could get the basic work done on the house, wax the floors, scrub them from top to bottom and in-between. It’d take some work, and that was just what he needed to focus. Focus was all one really needed to honestly keep going, some focus and a goal.


	3. Nice Neighbors

Hot coffee burned at the back of his throat as he coughed at the newspaper which was folded in an awfully strange way. One of those folds that screamed out to the world in a freakishly high voice of ‘you will never be able to get me into this perfect formation again’. Which, in all purposes, shouldn’t have been as disturbing as it was acting to him- the great feeling to just go and fix it pulsed through his fingertips before the thick item ‘funk’ed onto the flooring. 

He rolled his eyes about how stupid he was being, laughing gently to himself before grabbing a cup of water and sipping from it slowly. No way was he going to go around and drink that damn coffee if it was going to burn him again, maybe come back around to the brand in a couple of days when the memory had faded a little bit but right now it was much too fresh for him to even think about it. It hurt when he moved his tongue around, an achy feeling that reverberated through his skull. A large puzzle was spread out on the table that he had been working on a few nights beforehand- mostly with foliage that was really fucking hard to actually place together with the whole thing of any single piece being able to go anywhere. Really he only got the border done before giving up, the different selections of movies hadn’t done him very well that last evening, they had been watched too many times before and honestly there wasn’t any single thing that could keep his mind off of its path anymore. He had learned everything there was to know about this place, about the people and the history and the crafts- he could make an idiotic native American basket if that was something that was part of his moment. Not like he was really any good going about it, as being good at something was always a thing of practice, and dedication that he had no sense of even back as a child.

Eridan watched the sun rise from behind the trees, almost felt the shadows pass over his face in some kind of dramatic movie that people were definitely going to watch for decades before figuring out that it was just some shitty representation of how people make themselves more important than everything around them. He’d probably rather go see a movie dedicated to squirrels or something of the like, he’d always liked the underdog. His train of thought about how squirrels were to hide away food from some kind of natural disaster that was always around the corner to some kind of movement within the edges of his yard. He’d moved there in the first place because of all the trees that everyone seemed to adore in this community, but he had never thought about the risk that would result in such an action. Heck, he associated trees with the one thing that could seriously calm him down when a warm shower would not. It was a person no doubt, scuttling amongst the lowest branches that hovered above the ground just slightly that only a couple different sets of feet that ran along the dark leaves that had started falling only yesterday morning. They were red shoes, maybe a set of black and white ones although he really didn’t think people would actually go around in other people’s yards with a friend- there was no point in such actions. Sure, there were idiots who were junkies on adrenaline but usually they went for the thrill of being caught or something like those lines- and there really wasn’t anything like that thrill around this part of town. He watched the different movements for a while, counting at least four different sets of shoes.

Drawing the curtains made him feel a bit better, even with the wonderful sun that he had come to enjoy while sitting and researching different historical contexts- writing different papers on how singular acts by singular people changed the entire course of history. He felt fine at this point, listening to the news talk about how great it was to make homemade crafts for your kids, when a couple of shadows passed by the large window. He didn’t take any notice of it, tapping away calmly at the laptop that sat so kindly in front of him, at least until the first ‘thud’ rumbled through the home. The chair clattered to the floor without a second to process for the male as he retreated backwards into the house to the kitchen- the heart of the damn place. It wasn’t hailing. No large chunks of asteroids were falling from the sky. A couple more thuds radiated through the place, this he took a bit better- sitting on the floor near the cabinets that held his couple of most precious china. He collected the items so that he could feel the small chunks of comfort that everything that a single person owned brought to them. 

He brushed it off the small thought that this occurrence was one of those things were an actual air raid, and all of the idiotic things that went through his head were just panicking figures of his imagination. He’d been told that once, probably one of those times that he sat on the big leather sofas and attempted to make some kind of connection with the person who was helping him only for the paycheck that was delivered visit by visit. One that had outwardly admitted that he didn’t actually care through several small comments that he just couldn’t let go. Sure Eridan had just a bit of a problem with the whole ‘pour your soul out to me and I’ll help you’ concept, but keeping silent was so much… worse.

All those nights that he would lie in the bathtub with nothing to do other than watch some spiders start a colony on the ceiling made him finally click that what he was doing wasn’t healthy. He had come to expect so little from the universe, back when he moved his arms blood would still trickle down from the scabs that never could quite heal quickly enough for his taste. He had watched them for days, picking at them even though the doctors kept on repeating that he would get them infected with some kind of airborne bacteria and they would have to go and amputate whole body parts. Those days when he would have a nurse push him around in the hospital just so that he could see different faces- although that only lasted about three days with the way that he noticed people and how they looked at him so… differently. There was disgust. Fear.

The thuds eventually waned off, followed by long streaks of laughter that wouldn’t be able to be controlled by anything in the current existence of mankind- it was a kind of cackling laugh that by no doubt could be recognized by anyone if they were to hear it twice within their lifetime. Which was unlikely because such a laugh was a killer. Eridan listened as the loud voices kept on rattling on about how good of a prank this had been- how completely surprised the douche inside must be right now- how cheap they had gotten the dairy products at the local grocery store.

He wasn’t a douche, although such nicknames had passed by him several times over the years. They probably viewed him as such because… well of everything, only coming out to fix a couple of flower beds while it rained or fixing some wooden project in his garage that he would let no one see on the face of the planet long enough to actually remember it before he killed them.

Eridan waited until the voices faded away, leaving him sulking silently in his kitchen before grabbing his tall glass of water to take the edge off of the nerves that had acted up so suddenly. He really shouldn’t be afraid of anything anymore, and he couldn’t help but cuss profusely at himself for slipping up within just those couple of seconds. It could have been the end. And he had to be prepared for the end instead of cowering like some dog in the safest place that came to mind. A large hat was pulled over his head- one of those strange cat-hats that he had gotten from a girl he had met while in the hospital’s care, real nice girl she had been other than the fact that it seemed that she believed that she could honestly talk with all animals. He had nothing against it, and it made him feel just a bit better with the item tied around the bottom of his chin when he stepped out the back door to see what had been done.

It smelled bad for one, the odor ripping its way through his nostrils and hammering away at his brain without a second thought. “Dear god…” he whispered quietly, tracing the brick walling that was supposed to be ‘classy’ on the outside of the house and took away a filmy substance that was what the rank smell appeared to be. He’d been egged. Idiots came around and fucking destroyed a good batch of eggs that they should have fucking taken care of instead of busting them open and more than likely either destroying the piece of property that he really couldn’t give a single shit about or making it so that he would actually have to go around and clean it before its destroyed.

He cussed generally under his breath, rounding his house before rolling his sleeves up and taking up the position of cleaner with the garden hose that he had gotten probably years ago in his hands started to spray down the house in a general arch of motion. He lost track of time before he heard someone’s footsteps coming around the house, along with a voice that was calmly explaining about something along the lines of how doorbells were installed for people to actually answer them. He looked up for a couple of seconds before recognizing the guy as the person from the paintings- the one with long hair and jesus christ was he buff. Buffer than any bull that had even existed throughout the centuries, maybe it was a genetic thing? Genetic or steroids there really wasn’t anything to give off that it was one or the other, probably a mix of both. He seemed like one of those polite guys that you met when you accidently walked in on someone while they were attempting to use the bathroom facilities- the whole understanding eyes and strong set jaw that just put them on the list of people who you really wouldn’t want to get into a fight with.

“Are you the resident that lives within this building?”

“… yeah?”

“I have to report to you that your house is not within the parameters of the local neighborhood.”

“I- what?” This came as a shock to him, of course he had several calls that were left standing on his answering machine that were supposed to be of a low priority considering how many times they had called within the amount of time- so it wasn’t like he was expecting anyone to actually … well come out. “I’m- the house was up to date when I bought it-“

The strange buff guy paused for a moment before continuing as if he was some kind of programmed machine, of course that was ridiculous because artificial intelligence wasn’t feasibly possible with the level of technology that the human race currently had. “You are required to install a mailbox with the correct digits of your residence along its side.”

Eridan huffed under his breath, tugging his sleeves down in a violent manner before half storming off to the front yard and seeing what the heck this guy was talking about- and sure enough the numbers on his mailbox had been pried off with some kind of tool, what kind of place had he gotten himself into? He cussed several times under his breath before kicking the piece of shit that marked human conversation for him. He stood there dramatically for a moment, ignoring the looks from the other male before wiping his brow in a motion of saying ‘I can’t deal with this right now’ before walking back into his house and shutting it down within a minute.

The phone rang a couple more times throughout the time that he sat in the complete darkness of his bathroom, licking his lips occasionally to see if they had cracked yet- to see if it still hurt when the saliva slid across the muscles. Eridan let the soaked clothes cling tightly to his skin as the hot water poured down onto him from the shower faucet. It was comforting, like a mother’s touch when there was no other kind of support to be given, just like the way cats and dogs curled up when they were picked up by that one spot on the back of their neck. Kind of strange, although he never questioned the power of water- the one thing that supported the existence of the entire basis to ‘life as we know it’, an incredible substance that had gone through the planet’s systems so many times that whenever a mouthful of water trickles down someone’s throat it has been through the experience before.

He liked thinking about the circle of life- the whole thoughts of ‘where do we fit in?’ or ‘bigger picture’- although he knew that it was completely ridiculous. All of the arguments that people made saying that there really is someone out there in the universe watching them and taking care of them was only a thought for the emotionally tried in Eridan’s opinion- and he wouldn’t take that away from them because he knew what it was like to have that constant beam of brightness instead of the every once in a while flicker that science or history gave him in this existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dont worry, its going to get better soon my friends


End file.
